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With a propulsive narrative voice, Oliver Twist is immediately engaging. A large cast of memorable characters have remained with me since finishing: especially Artful Dodger, Fagin, Mr. Grimwig, Bill Sikes. As I mentioned in a prior post about OT, Bill Sikes is one of the greatest villains that I have ever encountered, I also mentioned that there are some jarring elements in the novel, which can be found in the wikipedia entry on how Fagin (cont)

This was my first experience with Sayers & I was a bit jarred when I read that it was published in '33, as many of the concerns expressed feel contemporary. The office politics was humorous & painful, the social commentary was spot-on & cleverly tying in the murder with the greater themes without browbeating was brilliant. I will definitely be reading more Sayers.
Book 14 of #MidwayBOTY23

I was about 1/3 of the way through Jones book when I realized that it was essentially a fantasy version of Black Books. Tamsin Greig's Fran as Sophie Hatter, Bill Bailey's Manny as Michael Fisher & Dylan Moran's Bernard Black as Howell Jenkins. I watched the Miyazaki movie ages ago & thought, “Meh,“ & was struggling a bit at the beginning as it felt like a bit of an imitation of Pratchett. However, when I came up with my own cast for it, I (cont)

I have read quite a few short story collections this years & Carver's Cathedral is easily one of the best. Several of these have now entered the modern canon of the short story form, & for good reason. But there are other, less well-known works in the collection that deeply moved me: A Small, Good Thing & The Compartment. Carver's stories are filled with blue-collar workers, misfits & oddballs but many of them are just trying to make it (cont)

This gritty, bleak novella was the basis for the 2011 Pedro Almodovar film The Skin I Live In. I have not seen the Almodovar movie, however I do recall seeing trailers for the movie & immediately thinking of Georges Franju's 1960 movie Eyes Without a Face, one of the first Criterion Collection movies I ever watched. This is a deeply unsettling work of transgressive fiction that I wouldn't recommend to many. As The Complete Review states (cont)

Of all of the genres that I currently read, sci-fi is high on my list of personally acquired tastes. Although I have always admired stories & movies of the mindbending & conceptually driven variety (typically involving time travel & questions of reality/identity) I have tended to shy away from the genre until the past few years. Clarke's 2001 is a strange beast. Although Clarke has sole authorial credit, it was co-authored with Kubrick the (cont)

This is a brilliant work about a couple, out of step with their times, who decide to have six children. Their home becomes a center for friends & family & everything is fairly idyllic until the birth of their fifth child, Ben. Ben does not fit into the family unit, but the reason why is difficult to put into words & it is this elusiveness that makes this a work I can't stop thinking about. It includes quite possibly the most harrowing scene (cont)

Set in a fictional occupied country (clearly Vichy France), Dirty Snow is one of the bleakest books I have read so far this year with a character, Frank Friedmaier, who is at times a representative & at others an exaggeration of the morally bankrupt landscape surrounding him. As Volllmann writes in the afterword, “Simenon has concentrated noir into a darkness as solid and heavy as the interior of a dwarf star.“
Book 5 of #MidwayBOTY23

Moby Dick was tied with King Lear as my favorite book read last year. I have never read another book like it before. Bartleby is a jewel of a novella that starts as an employee's admirable quiet rebellion against the extra tasks that are piled on his workload with one of the greatest mottos of 19th C American lit, “I would prefer not to.“ Bartleby soon transforms into a complex story as Bartleby begins to refuse to do more & more with the (cont)

Sir Terry Pratchett's initial entry in his unique Discworld series was a completely engrossing reading experience. Read in one sitting, it is great whimsical fantasy & although it might not be as satirical as his other works, there are definitely a few barbs strewn throughout. I have not yet read more Pratchett since I read this several months ago, but it is def a favorite reading experience of the year.
Book 2 of #MidwayBOTY23